June 4, 2025

Minding Your Thoughts

A Biblical Overview of Obtaining and Maintaining a Biblical Thought Life

Luke 12:11 And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say:

“But it was in my monthly report for the last six months!”  That’s what I told my boss. His response was a statement that has stuck with me as a father, husband, and preacher. He replied, “It may have been in your report, but you must make me understand.”  Our company had a contract with a customer, and I was responsible for overseeing it on a corporate basis. In our agreement there was to be an annual report sent to the customer’s corporate office and a report sent to every purchase point individually. Each purchase point would only see their portion of the total report and the corporate report would include all of the individual reports. It would require a great deal of bookkeeping and details to create these annual reports.

Starting six months before the reports were due, I began putting in my monthly report the need to begin working on them. An internal system needed to be established, and product purchases needed to be tracked; it was a lot of information and far too much work to handle in a short amount of time. I even visited our corporate office and talked to the office personnel about the reports. But, with less than a month left to complete the reports they had not even begun to prepare them. Needless to say, my boss was upset. Upon trying to defend myself I told him that I had repeatedly written about this project in my monthly report to which he responded, “You must make me understand.”

I learned a very valuable lesson, sometimes things are so vitally important that we must exhaust all means possible to make others understand them. Yes, I should have been much more aggressive, even to the point of antagonism, at least then the reports would have been done on a timely basis. It took many man hours and cost much overtime to complete the needed work to fulfill our agreement.

Our Lord knows this which is why He has recorded this same teaching three times (Matthew 10:19, Mark 13:11, Luke 12:11), and He has dispatched the Holy Spirit to confirm it in us and fulfill it with us if needed. Yes, indeed, in some things, sometimes, we must make others understand.

May the Lord bless and be pleased with your thought life today.

Dr. William T. Howe